#Wyll Lae'zel and Gale can stick around and fix things the rest of us will just evacuate the plane. It's called self-care. Toodles.

[y-rhywbeth2]

So I think it was implied that the Emperor can't reach you while you're on Avernus, but at the same time you clearly don't undergo rapid ceramorphosis, so presumably the Elder Brain's activation signals can't reach you either, and the tadpole won't activate without it.

...what I'm hearing is that we could've just fucking left Toril and it would solve all our problems. Drop by Sigil, buy some kind of infernal thingymabob or something from an Elemental Plane that will keep Karlach's engine in check (maybe the Negative Energy Plane, since all that heat will just meet pure entropy and dissipate into nothing). Then we can go somewhere else if we want! Plenty of other parts of the Prime that have sunlight and etc for a more familiar setting. Even Durge might get a break; Bhaal's a demipower with no known influence outside of Toril, and he can't leave without using regular mortal interplanar travel magics. It's dangerous, sure, but you have a chance of surviving. Maybe. Bringing the party temporarily to Avernus and being on a different plane would explain how Raphael can cut off the Urge when he doesn't have the power to interfere with a god that way.

The only one in serious trouble here is Gale, because Mystra's probably not going to keep risking the Weave if he's not going to help fix the threat... Although maybe other plane's metaphysics means that the orb is inert? Maybe Shar could cause problems for Shadowheart, depending on whether she has influence on other worlds, but we can avoid those.

Wyll and Lae'zel are also in trouble, but that's because they have things like family members and a conscience and/or a sense of duty, and tbh that's on them.

It's not like the Absolute is going to be that much of a threat: If they win the other gods will send their powerful servants at it until the Absolute goes down. At worst we lost Baldur's Gate. They can rebuild that.

The biggest problem is explained by whoever this is:

Because then the Dead Three get a power and relivancy boost to fix their temporal power and climb the divine ranks after being dead for a century (although, again, Bane really doesn't need one, he was a Greater Deity). Smartest person in Baldur's Gate, give them a medal.

And tbh that's not that big a deal, anyway. The Dead Three have been powerful before, and the world didn't end then, either.

[thessalian]

Faerun!Alisaie vs Politics and Cults

After an awful lot of wandering and more than a few dead things

Alisaie: Oh, hey, look - mushroom folks.

Gale: Please let them be friendlier than the last few encounters... Not that I'm not grateful for you taking us into that arcane tower - I learned a great deal - but it wasn't fun. And as for the kuo-toa...

Alisaie: Look, I was not going to tell the fish-people that I was a fucking god, okay?!? That's how you piss off real gods and get smited! Smote? Smoten? None of that actually sounds right.

Shadowheart: Just stick with 'angry gods'. Either way, it's getting ugly.

Gale: Um. Yes. About that. I ... may know a few things about angry gods.

Alisaie: Part of me doesn't want to know.

Wyll: And ... the rest of you?

Alisaie: Is a bard. Do the maths.

Gale: Well ... I may have pissed off Mystra. Just a bit. I had the best of intentions! I promise! Lovers give gifts to their--

Wyll: Hang on. Did you just say lovers?!?

Gale: I ... I have game. What can I say? But I decided to do something big and impressive and there's a bit of the tainted Weave in me and that's why I've been asking for magical artefacts, you see - I have to drain them to feed this bit of Weave so it stays in a ball and doesn't erupt and destroy half the landscape but it doesn't seem to be working particularly well anymore.

Alisaie: ...And you waited until we were in the Underdark for this because...?

Gale: Well, if we find an illithid colony, just leave me at the gates with some of that wyvern toxin and run like hell. I can at least do some good as I go out.

Alisaie: .........We. Are. FIXING THIS.

Gale: But--

Alisaie: No. You -- you just shut up. I've got Wyll with that Mizora bitch and Shadowheart getting repeatedly stabbed in the hand by her goddess and Karlach's own body trying to kill her and Astarion's stupid fucking master sending monster hunters after us and now there's this. Fuck's sake, could I just have friends who aren't going to implode?!?

Wyll: Well ... there's Lae'zel...

Alisaie: I haven't found a way to warm up to her yet.

Wyll: What about Halsin?

Alisaie: I am not ready to confront whatever guilt is lurking in there. I'm just not. I have enough to deal with right now. And I guess it starts with mushroom people. Whole colonies grow down here, looks like. And they say nothing grows underground...

A short chat with mushroom folk later

Alisaie: Welp. The duergar around here are chumps. The raising the dead's a bit of a pisser, though. Thanks for the assist there, Shadowheart.

Shadowheart: Shame I couldn't use it much. All our large friend over here did was raise his own corpses, and I wasn't sure if Turn Undead works on myconid-puppeted undead. Why did we bring this ... individual with us again?

Glut: AVENGE MY CIRCLE.

Alisaie: I am not getting involved in mushroom politics. *yeets Glut into the void*

Eventually, on a boat somewhere

Alisaie: So now I go murder the hell out of another drow. I'm not sure if this is politics or just being Saviour of the Mushroom People.

Other Boat: *cruises up alongside*

Duergar: Why've you got our scout's boat?

Alisaie: Your scout's dead. We're reporting back.

Duergar: True Soul, too. Huh. Handy. C'mon.

After a fair bit of negotiation, while stabbing up a Scrying Eye

Alisaie: So half these duergar want Nele saved and the other half want him dead. And either way we have to get him out, if just to get his head. At least it's not mushroom politics. It's just ... brain-worm cult politics. Fuck my life entirely.

Wyll: Still Saviour of the Mushroom People, though.

Alisaie: As a title, it lacks something. Blade of the Frontiers has way more oomph.

Gale: Look - you not only dug into the ... 'brain-worm cult politics', as you put it, enough to get help in our objective, but you convinced them to pay you for the privilege of helping you. Handsomely, in fact. We need an entirely new title for the nonsense you pull.

Alisaie: Just remind me not to ask Volo. Sometimes he's ... yeah, no.

Gale: And that's another thing - you may not have got a cure out of what he had in mind, but now you can see through Invisibility spells. You trip into the damnest luck, you know that?

Alisaie: My command performance got interrupted by mind flayers, Gale.

Gale: And they didn't kill you. And they put you in a position to make a lot of money and save the worlds. Plus the wonderful company you now keep.

Alisaie: Well, I got a Shadowheart out of the deal. That makes everything worth it.

Shadowheart: *blush* ...shutup.

Alisaie: I will not. You're adorable when you blush. And I need some nice picture to keep me going through the upcoming ugliness.

And, sure enough

Nele: Ah, good, civilised company! These idiots took too long to get me out; kill them for me.

Alisaie: Y'know ... I thought this was an awful lot of effort wasted when we could've just let you suffocate and take your head at our leisure, but ... no. No, this works. This gives me the privilege of killing your nasty, unctuous, cruelty-endorsing, worm-infected, gnome-enslaving ass. Bonus points if I lop your head right off your overprivileged shoulders while you're still standing!

Nele: ...wut?

Elder Brithuar: ...Okay, that was worth the extra gold. Let's go, my lads!

Stabnation: *ensues*

And, after an awful lot of running around...

Gale: Alisaie ... not to complain, but...

Alisaie: Yes...?

Gale: We just murdered a metallic abomination at great cost to ourselves. You nearly died doing it.

Alisaie: Well, you're the one who eventually killed the fucking thing, so thanks for that.

Gale: Well, it seemed to be weakest to just being hit with blunt objects and thankfully my staff doesn't melt in heat and-- Anyway! Just thank me by explaining why we're traipsing through lava!

Alisaie: I wanted Karlach to feel at least a little bit at home. Besides, there's a lava elemental she might like to kill.

Karlach: All right! Time to break in this hammer!

Alisaie: Besides, I need to get used to having someone martial on side. If we're hitting that gith'yanki creche, we need to have Lae'zel with us. So I figured I'd start with the more personable melee fighter and work my way up.

Gale: Fair. I'm personally looking forward to travelling with Lae'zel. Maybe she could tell me what life is like in the Astral Plane.

Alisaie: Yeah, because she'd actually tell you shit all--

Karlach: Maybe the people with ice stuff could help me kill the lava monster?

Gale; Alisaie: Oh; right. Sorry.

Gale: *fires Ray of Frost*

Alisaie: *rapid-fires ice arrows*

Stabnation: *ensues some more*